Upstart AAP Party Delivers a Blow to India's Modi

February 10, 2015 9:55 AM

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Narendra Modi wasn’t a candidate in the recently concluded city-wide elections in Delhi, the early results of which, on Tuesday morning, pointed to an overwhelming victory for an upstart ant-corruption political party. But as the ballots were counted and the scale of the Aam Aadmi, or Common Man, Party’s (AAP) triumph became clear, there was little doubt that the Indian Prime Minister had nonetheless suffered a crushing loss—his first since he led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to victory in national elections last year.

Modi’s lieutenants had hoped that his personal popularity—which helped the BJP secure the biggest single-party majority in thirty years in the national contest last May—would carry them over the finish line in Delhi. Although the BJP nominated a chief ministerial candidate for the city’s top job, it...